media trial

I caught a bit of Sunrise this morning and saw the media circus surrounding the imminent arrival of Michelle Leslie. There was the overwhelming impression that the girl wasn't exactly going to get a warm welcome. I've just read online that she only answered one question before losing her shoe while being pursued by media. And good for her. It was as if she owed the media money and they were waiting there to collect. What they wanted to ask her, is whether she "faked" being Muslim to get a better outcome in court. What a ridiculous fucking beat-up. You don't have to wear a headscarf 24/7 to be a Muslim. One of the main criticisms of some forms of Islam is that it's repressive to women but oh, as soon as a young, liberated woman claiming to be Muslim shows a bit of skin, everyone's up on the horse accusing her of double standards, as if you have to be all or nothing. Typical. It's all black and white with the media. 'Either you're with us or you're against us.' People can and do exist, who identify with one religion or another without being a hardline fundamentalist. You don't have to go door to door selling the fucking Watchtower to have your own faith in a god of your choosing. (Though, as an aside, if I were in a Balinese prison on drug charges, I'd convert in a nanosecond if it meant I might not have to spend 20 years shitting in a bucket. Wouldn't most people?) And if people are calling her some kind of hypocrite for wearing a burqa in court and a tank top when she got off the plane, well, why do you think people wear suits in court? Why do they dress smartly for such appearances? Because it wouldn't help them if they didn't. You don't appear to have a good character if you front the judge and jury wearing a dog collar and a Sex Pistols t-shirt. People forget that court isn't about 'the whole truth', it's about making a judge and/or jury believe your version of the truth. And who wears their Sunday best on a plane? Who could bear to wear anything but a tank top in Singapore? As for all those "fake" Christians who never go to church but observe Christmas every year just so they get presents... I don't remember the tabloids digging up Shapelle Corby's church-going record when she expressed a renewed faith in Christianity. The other aspect of the ML case is whether she should be allowed to sell her story to the media, given that she has been convicted of a crime and the law states she should not be allowed to profit from that. Well, why should the media be allowed to profit from it and not her? I think it's time people stopped living in a fantasy land when it comes to the motives of the media. They're businesses, they're huge corporations, they do it for the money. If it weren't profitable, Rupert would be running sweatshops across Asia and churning out computers or sneakers or dildos. The media already have, and will continue to make money off Michelle Leslie's story. We live in an age where the media uses information as currency, yet have the conviction that they have a right to this information. Sure, when the government is planning to fuck us all over, yeah, the public has a right and a need to know and journalism should not forget its role as the fourth estate but when it's someone's personal story the media is after, someone's first-hand account, the media is being sanctimonious and hypocritical if it thinks it can tell someone 'we want you to tell us everything that happened and we'll then use your words and pictures to sell newspapers, while giving you nothing'. If the perpetrators of crime should not be allowed to profit from their exploits, why should anyone else? It's still making money off crime. If spending three months or 20 years in a Bali prison is considered a valuable insight into the Indonesian legal system, one that people can learn from or be entertained by, wherein lies that value, and how is that value determined and quanitified in what used to be a society but is now just a free-market economy? Furthermore, the law in question is silly because it's so easy to split the hair. ML's crime was drug-use (I'm inferring this from ABC online's description of her as "convicted drug user"). She surely won't be asked about what it's like to use drugs; they'll want to know about what it's like to be on trial and imprisoned in Indonesia, how Shapelle is doing and what was happening with the whole Muslim thing, a story that would be much the same whether she was found guilty or not. On the other hand, she's now a lot more famous than she was so someone will pick her up for a big modeling contract. Is it making money from crime if your profile is increased through having a conviction? Chopper Read sold kids' books. Did people buy them because he's a good children's author, or because he has no ears?